On January 12, 2017, France issued an ordinance (source document in French) modifying Article L. 1111-8 of the Public Health Code to require health data hosting services to obtain a certificate of compliance from the French Accreditation authority. In addition, when archiving such data, service providers will be required to obtain the approval of France's Ministry of Culture. This certification process will replace the current approvals given by the Minister of Health. The Conseil d'Etat will set forth the conditions for approval.

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